Vanderpump Rules Recap: Fight Night

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That Joe Simpson is not a stupid dude. The mastermind behind his daughter Jessica’s career has found quite the second act, working as a manager for male models and doing photo shoots of handsome young gentlemen who may or may not take off layers of clothing in front of his camera and do just about anything to get ahead in this business. Now, I’m not saying those gay rumors are true — they very well might not be — but if I were a gentleman of a certain age who admired the male form and I had the money to purchase some very professional photography equipment and set up a “bachelor pad” in the Hollywood Hills, then I sure would become a male physique photographer.

Joe is already a pro. Look at the amazing advice he gives Tom Sandoval, who would like to get back into modeling. “Stomach in, dick out.” That’s the extent of his direction. He ain’t dumb. Joe knows how this should be done. Sure, Tom translates that into standing in front of a fan with his arms out and his layers and hair flapping in the breeze like he’s Michael Jackson in the “Scream” music video. That’s not Joe’s fault. Nor is it Joe’s fault that Tom wore a cowl-neck sweater with a hoodie over it like he’s dressing as J.C. Chasez for Halloween in 2003. Maybe that was good for Joe, harking back to a time he recalls with fondness, when all of those boy bands and their post-pubescent bulging muscles were circling around his daughter. It’s almost too much for a very straight, formerly married Baptist minister to handle. Almost.

Tom Sandoval is really trying to make his mark on the entertainment industry. Like he said, he just wants to make his name in this town. He’ll do it in modeling, acting, music, mixology, mime, reality television arts, bar mitzvah party starting, singing-telegram delivery, infomercial hand modeling, or tying balloon animals. He doesn’t care how he gets famous; he just wants to be there. That’s why he’s starring in The Rival, an eight-minute short film that hunky manager Peter is making in the hopes that it will convince someone to invest $100 million into his sci-fi epic. It will not. Well, Sandoval’s dorsal braid is surely ahead of its time but, like The Terminator, I hope it’s from a future that never comes to pass.

DJ James Kennedy’s career surely isn’t skyrocketing after his disastrous gig last weekend and it looks like his relationship with Raquel might be on the rocks too. When they go out to dinner, do they go to the same restaurant and sit on the outside deck every time? Is this the only restaurant that will serve James? At dinner, she tells him that she doesn’t think she can trust him to not sleep around when they’re not together. There’s a good reason: He’s probably cheating on her. I mean, look at the evidence, woman. They had his clothes. They had selfies from his bed. Why would they lie?

What is James’s rationalization? “I was just an idiot and I trusted them too much,” he says. “She could have gotten into bed, taken five of those selfies, and got out again.” Yeah, she could have. But that’s sort of like saying, “No, I wasn’t kissing that girl, I just tripped and my tongue fell into her mouth and when I tripped I fumbled with my phone and it accidentally put in her phone number and then later I butt-dialed her, but it wasn’t a butt dial, it was my butt and it accidentally texted her my dick pics and a message that said, ‘Come Over,’ but if you put a million monkeys at a million typewriters eventually one of them will eventually type, ‘Come over.’ Right?”

No one believes that James didn’t sleep with those girls, but he’s too stupid and too stubborn to admit he’s lying, even after Sandoval basically calls him out right to his face. “It really looks like it happened,” Tom says, which is basically calling James a liar in the nicest way possible. James says that he would like to admit that it was true, because it would be easier for him, but he just can’t admit to something he didn’t do. Yeah, okay. We get it.

These were all the things I understood about this week’s episode, and there is still plenty that absolutely befuddles me. How did Stassi end up with a younger brother who is basically an old man, like he’s the 10-year-old version of The Baby Boss? How the hell could Katie forget to put a line for people’s names on her RSVP cards and what printer did she use who didn’t warn her about what she was doing? Now that she has no idea who is coming to her wedding, how is she going to make a seating chart? Why the hell would Pandora Vanderpump let Scheana, Katie, Stassi, Kristen, and all of the other rage wraiths have a spa day on her lanai? Does she have enough sage to smudge out all of that negativity after they’re gone?

While we’re asking questions, why the hell do Jax and Tom think that they could fit into Lisa Vanderpump’s clothes? Have they seen the size of their shoulders and the size of Lisa’s shoulders? Do they understand how clothes work? Apparently, they do not. I did love the way that Tom put together this outfit of just necklaces, cat-eye sunglasses, and a hat. He is serving up clueless butch-queen-first-time-in-drags-at-ball realness. He has no idea how to dress like a woman or a drag queen (which, seriously, are two very different things), just patches together a bunch of sparkle, and loves that it all gets him a laugh.

My real befuddlement, however, is about the fights between Scheana and Katie and Tom and Katie. I have absolutely no idea what either fight is about. I would say it’s because I never have any clue what Katie is droning on about, since the only feelings that ever matter are hers and they change every minute. The Scheana fight is totally Scheana’s fault, but I have no clue what happened. I think that these girls’ emotions are like a dog whistle to me: they’re pitched at such a frequency of insanity that I just can’t hear them.

It has something to do with the fact that Stassi is mad that Ariana doesn’t like her. Katie wants Ariana to apologize because, as she said, Stassi’s feelings matter more to her than Ariana’s. Katie also doesn’t like Ariana because she thinks she’s elitist and acts like she’s better than them. Well, that is because Ariana is better than them. As Tom points out, she has the emotional maturity to say, “Stassi and I don’t like each other. That’s fine. We can be cordial during group activities.” Stassi, however, needs everyone to love her or GTFO. Since Ariana won’t like her, she needs to somehow force that validation or have Ariana thrown out of the group, which she does by manipulating Katie.

Ariana, however, is too smart and won’t fall for Stassi’s nonsense. I love that Ariana won’t apologize because she doesn’t mean it. Still, she does concede that she will try to be more open-minded around Stassi and not make her uncomfortable. It seems like the two of them are all squared and sorted in what seems like a mature and reasonable way. It’s Katie’s need to sit around and sing sorority songs like it’s a Mentos commercial or something that upsets the balance. And that leads to her and Scheana screaming. I really don’t get it.

As for the Tom fight, I am completely befuddled. It seems like she showed up half-sauced and got mad at Tom when he, like everyone else, told her that she gets unruly when she drinks. But Tom is right: If anyone expresses an opinion to Katie that is different from her own, she acts like she’s been victimized. She reacts in that oh-so-mature way of stomping out of the restaurant and taking an Uber home.

Tom sat there alone, unafraid to let two burgers and a whole plate of fries go to waste. Since he was sitting by himself, he decided to take out his phone from his tight jean pockets. “I got our RSVP card picture. Real classy,” he typed and sent it off. He set his phone down and stuffed several fries in his mouth at once. His phone rumbled against the table. Tom wiped the grease off his fingers before picking up the phone. “You sure have seen it enough to know what it looks like,” was the response. Tom thought about typing, “Tiny balls, long shaft, just the way I like it,” but he figured he would just surprise his friend with a stomach full of beef on his way home. Katie would be lost in the space between her tears for the rest of the night, and he needed more than that plate of fries to sate him.